44: Pacts and Portents

Noah threw the last of the recently deceased demonic animals into the maw of our tree—that was now fifty five metres tall—and leapt up into the air on fluttering wings. It'd been huge before, but now it was a titan—Colossal, even. Deep inside the trunk, we heard a grinding, crunching noise as it chewed with gusto, and we all watched with hopeful expectation. Today should be the day that our tree evolved, for lack of a better term. Did that make the tree a pokemon?

“How does this work?” I asked Paisley, who was standing beside me.

She shrugged her slim shoulders. “I have no idea. I’m going off what my class knowledge tooltips are telling me.”

I noticed her shoulders way too much. Why was I so hung up on them? Mine were the same! God I was weird.

The tree gave a gurgling rumble, and the whole trunk undulated. Like some sort of enormous beast preparing to vomit, the undulations and gurgling sounds increased in frequency, until there was a massive crack.

As one, the roots of the tree all snapped off at the trunk. It looked like the tree was about to topple over, but instead, four massive root legs ripped up out of the ground to crash down onto the earth. The taproot had split in four to create the huge legs that were now pulling it up further into the sky.

It towered over us, a full sixty or more metres in height now, and with a frightening display of power, roared. Something clanged to the ground beside me, and I felt my heart drop into my stomach. Oh fuck. That was one of the control pins.

“Oh no,” Paisley gasped, staring at the same pin. Moving quickly, she bent and picked it up, running for the tree like a heroic soldier getting ready to dive on a live grenade.

“STOP,” a low, earthquake of a voice bellowed.

Everyone froze, and we stared at the tree in a mix of fascination and fear. Had it… had it just spoken to us?

After almost fifteen seconds, the tree continued in its strange chanting mode of speech. “There is no need for your controlling magicks anymore. I have awoken. You have fed me well, and thus, I shall cooperate. When we are naught but sprouts still hiding within the shells of our seeds, we trees learn the value of a symbiotic relationship. I have long since been disconnected from my kin by death, but perhaps I can weave a new root network with you, the two-legs who have kept me fed. I have heard you tiny voices, whispering plans of nesting and adventure. I approve. Build your house amongst my branches—beneath my leaves, and they shall provide shelter. Like my ghouls now, or the pollinators who were once my companions, you shall swarm around me and defend the both of us as we wander this world in search of meat and knowledge. So thus, as I find the plan acceptable, I offer in counter, I will cooperate with your whims, your idle, fleeting commands, and in return, I ask that you do not bind me once more. Is this agreeable?”

Holy shit. The tree was offering to help us in our plans? Just like that, even after we stuck stakes of metal into it and stuff?

“Oh great spirit-tree,” Paisley began slowly, her brows furrowed as she raced to think of a response. “I think this will work, but what about… what about our nails and ropes? Won’t they hurt you while we build?”

The huge, faceless spirit rumbled like a rock slide, shaking its leaves in a susurrating chorus, and I had to fight the urge to duck and cover. Except it wasn’t a rock slide, obviously, it was the tree laughing. “You are worried for the pain I might feel? Your concern is appreciated, but nevertheless unnecessary. I feel no pain, save for the pain of a belly gone too long without the sweet juices of dead meat. You may drive your splinters of iron into my hide without fear. You may stack your pebbles atop my mouth-scar without fear. Ah, but hark, a warning yet—Most days shall I slumber, for speech and consciousness are wearisome, so even during those few times where I shall rouse myself, I will follow the direction you give with your enchantments.”

“On behalf of myself and my friends, I accept,” Paisley replied eagerly. Ethan looked like he wanted to say something, but she shushed him with a wave of her hand. I had to agree with her. Yeah, it was a little unnerving to just trust the tree not to eat us, but what other choice did we have? The damn thing was a raid boss now. It’d rip us to shreds and eat us without breaking a sweat.

I glanced over the rest of our group and saw varying degrees of approval on everyone’s face. Good enough for me.

“Good. Then, shall slumber once more take me,” The tree said, and just like that, it’d plopped itself back down into the dirt.

Fuckin’ hell, but that'd been nerve wracking. Also, for some reason when the tree started speaking like some ancient Englishwoman, I'd started picturing it as being very feline. I think it was the way it basically said, so long as you feed me, I'll be a very good and friendly tree, which was very catlike behaviour.

Everyone was quiet for several long seconds after the tree fell asleep again, until Mum clapped her hands once and said, “Well then, I guess we’d better get started on that foundation now, hadn’t we?”

And so we began to construct our new home in earnest. We started with the foundation, as my mother had said. We soon ran into a problem that our new architect pointed out to us within seconds of hearing what our available building materials were.

I believe his indignant response was, “You want to use stone for a building material on a giant walking tree? You’re fucking dreaming, mate.”

Unfortunately, we didn’t really have many alternative options, so he suggested we search for some sort of flexible glue-like mortar. Did we rush off into the dusty libraries of the world and research the matter? Nope. We googled it.

It was Elena who hit upon the eventual solution, although it took a bit of developing. The source of our solution? Giant man-eating toads. A dungeon nearby contained a whole bunch of them, and their saliva was perfect for the job, once mixed with a species of faerie moss found in that same dungeon. The actual forum post she found was people complaining about getting glued to the ground when they got covered in goo and sat on the moss. Trust her to connect the dots between glued butts and flexible mortar.

Our trips into the dungeon sent me all the way to level 27—Two whole levels—, and I assigned the accompanying four stat points into Focus. I needed the boost to my perception if I was going to get into the dragon-tracking business. Was there a business for tracking dragons? Whatever, I’d create it if not.

Kyosei Keiko: Level 27

Legend: Numbers within brackets are added to the base number, and come from various bonuses.

My stats were looking a little lopsided, with every single one of my magical stats still at one—and I would need to invest into Intelligence from time to time—but it was actually somewhat balanced for the role I was taking on. A melee DPS needed to be fast, strong, and have the reaction times to get the hell out of the way if an enemy was taking a swing at them.

Plus, most of my abilities scaled off the physical stats anyway. It just wasn't a priority to work on the magical ones. The only real consideration was mana, which came from intelligence, and thankfully my class item was acting as a bandaid there. But, speaking of abilities, I had a few new ones to choose from.

Draconic BattlecryUnleash a cry of fury that echoes with the power of dragonkind. Increases damage of physical and attuned elemental attacks.

Steelfeather DartMagical Attack. Conjure and throw a small throwing knife made of your attuned element's energy.

Steelfeather GuardCreate an ephemeral shield of elementally attuned feathers that deflects projectiles.

Twin Claw DuplicityYour next attack is doubled. The additional attack is magical in nature and deals damage equal to 50% of the original attack.

I had four to choose from, and a whole six ability points to spend. I could, if I wanted, choose all four of them. That would be a mistake, however. As much as it would be incredible to stack both of the attack buffs—Draconic Battlecry and Twin Claw Duplicity—I only had so much time in the heat of combat, and juggling too many buffs would end in misery for myself and my team. The other two, I could see uses for, but by far the most immediately beneficial would be Steelfeather Guard.

So, I picked Steelfeather Guard and immediately levelled it straight to rank two. Next, I purchased Twin Claw Duplicity, because despite all its fancy wording and shit, in the end it was still an impressive 50% damage buff to an attack of my choosing. For now, I left it at rank one, and instead upgraded Psychosomatic Sunder and Flutter Cascade, because their combo with Larkspur had been incredible. Finally, I upgraded Ascendant Slice to rank 2, leaving me with one ability point spare. Honestly, I was very proud of my self restraint, because wow was it always so tempting to just stuff every new ability in a sack and run away with them.

"Hey, you awake, Keiko?"

Tilting my head, I looked up from my bed to see Paisley smiling at me from around my privacy screen. I motioned for her to come up into my bedroom nook with a wave of my hand and dismissed my menus.

"Hey Paisley," I said, returning the smile, while my gut did a little flip flop.

She shuffled up the stairs with a wryly apologetic expression. "Sorry for disturbing you. I um, I was just bored so I came to see what you were up to."

I watched her all but tiptoe over to my bed and hover there, looking unsure, like she wanted to sit down but didn't know if she was imposing.

"Sit," I said. "I was just allocating my stats and ability points. My new class evolution is a little strange so I'm just thinking how to get the most out of it."

Perching on the edge of the bed, asked, "What's the evo about? Dragons, right? As far as I know, you're the only person with your class."

"I am," I agreed, watching the way her hands were squeezing each other. She looked… stressed out, but like she was actively trying to hide it. Hopefully she'd tell me what was wrong.

"The abilities are all fairy dragon themed, like I told you earlier, but it's got this strange element swapping mechanic," I explained further. "Damage types that change depending on the element of the dragon my class item came from, that kind of thing."

Right now, the elemental damage type I was getting from my class item was Acid. Which meant that the little dragon I’d saved was some sort of acid dragon, rather than fire like you’re stereotypically expect. It was an interesting mechanic, but until we made it to the Faerie Wilds, I wasn’t sure how often I’d get to change my element.

Some of the stress in Paisley’s features faded as she became curious about my class, and commented, "Huh… that's really powerful. Always being able to swap to get past resistances. Well, it's useful for PvE anyway…"

Well shit. The trail of silence at the end of her sentence was just a little heavy.

I reached out to squeeze her arm softly. "What's up, Pay?"

"Just the old guild being dickheads," she sighed. Her eyes trailed down my arm from where I was touching her, until our gazes met. "They're talking on the forums about hunting us down when the expansion releases. Especially you. I mean, not you Keiko, but the… you know. The person they think you still are. Someone over there connected the dots between us leaving the guild and our updated story about what happened when you were kicked."

"Wait…" I said, stalling her with a wave. My stomach was all tied up with sudden onset anxiety. "I'm confused. So… they know that I'm Keiko now?"

She shook her head quickly. "No, no, that's not… I mean they've realised that Ethan and I are in contact with you again. They don't realise that the cute fairy girl used to be Rascal the Ranger."

Relieved, I settled back down a little. "Phew. Hopefully they don't realise I'm now Rascal the Ronin."

Paisley laughed at my dorky alliteration skills and we shared a look that was nice and tension-easing. I mean, things with Marlon and Co were still worrying, but way less so than if they knew who I was.

Plus… when it came down to it… "You know, they're still a PvE guild. If we build ourselves for the oncoming storm of probable PvP as everyone rushes to get to the new zone, we'll probably be able to hold our own against Marlon and the Silver Sausage-fest."

She considered my words for a moment, then said, “Yeah, I get that. It still sucks that we might have to fight old friends.”

“Think of it like getting revenge on new enemies,” I replied, smiling in a way I hoped was reassuring. If I was honest, though, the idea of facing them had me a little anxious.

“I guess,” pouted Paisley, picking at my bed covers with thumb and forefinger.

Sitting up, I shuffled over to her and gave her a brief hug. “Remember, this is still a game, okay? Yeah, it’s also a world we can live our whole lives in if we want, but it’s still a game. We respawn, we can’t be hurt at all outside of the small amount that the game lets through the pain settings. Everything will be okay, one way or another. I mean, shit, worst case scenario, we just pack up and move—leave the asshole brigade to their corner of the world. We’ve never even left the Human Kingdoms anyway. Everything will be okay.”

That seemed to do the trick, and her ears wiggled when she smiled and said, “Thanks, Keiko. I uh… I should also be getting to bed. I’ll be putting the preservation enchantments on the foundation tomorrow and it’s good to get the Rested buff for mana regen.”

“For sure,” I said, and watched her reluctantly leave my room. “Goodnight, Paisley.”